The truth about "Jekyll and Hyde" lies somewhere between Larry King's unblushing, "The best Broadway musical I've ever seen" and "I'd rather have dental work performed by a psychotic hillbilly."

It's the sort of musical critics usually hate, because there is so much wrong and awful about it that it kind of makes your skull hurt if you think about the whole thing too long. But the most puzzling thing about "J&H" is, despite all its readily apparent flaws, the show works as a quirky bit of entertainment, and turns out to be a fairly pleasant way to spend 2½ hours. The trick is to dive into the play with the right attitude, and think of it as something of an homage to those old, dreadfully over-the-top, black-and-white British horror movies, or maybe a hiss-the-villain American melodrama.

Lord knows there's plenty over-the-top and melodramatic about this show. And with the cinematic fades and dissolves done on stage with drops, the piece even has the feel of a movie to it.

At first, though, you don't know quite what to expect. You find yourself wanting to giggle at what seems to be an unintentional silliness riddling the shows. Common decency and good manners, however, prevent you from anything but silent chuckling until it becomes all too apparent this is a production that doesn't mind you having a laugh or two at its expense. Thinking about it later, though, you realize just how absurd the old Robert Louis Stevenson chestnut is, and you begin to wonder why you didn't get more guffawing in earlier.

It is after all, the story of a young doctor who is desperately trying to create a chemical formula that will separate man's good and evil natures, and make the world a delightful place (except, you have to presume, for that place they stack all the evil after separating it from the sweetness and light). Dr. Jekyll (Chuck Wagner) is particularly interested in this because his father spent his last days in an insane asylum, stark raving mad. He is unable to persuade the trustees of St. Jude's hospital that he should be allowed to experiment on a human being (an insane one, but a human nonetheless).

Naturally the kindly doctor, who is engaged to the lovely Emma Carew (Andrea Rivette), decides he will experiment on himself -- something anyone who has watched even a couple of awful old movies knows will lead to him totally ruining his life.
And, sure enough, almost from the first moment that he stabs himself with the red, glowing needle, he turns into the evil Mr. Hyde, a murderous sort who develops an unhealthy relationship with Lucy (Sharon Brown), a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold type, who also has a soft spot for kindly Doc Jekyll.

Oh, you know how the story goes.

Silly, right? Yep, it sure is, but the "J&H" folks play it as something of a stealth parody until the second act, when bloodless stabbings and neck breakings that sound like chickens being disjointed let you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that laughter is encouraged.

And that's also when you begin to fall in love with the show a little bit. By not taking itself that seriously, the traveling production of the musical has turned a potboiler of a Broadway show into a well-intentioned, off-kilter sort of musical with its heart in all the right places. It is also somewhat different from the show that's been running on Broadway for the past three years -- 10 minutes have been chopped from the script, and two songs that were exorcised before the Broadway opening -- "Bring on the Men" and "I Need to Know" -- have been reinstated.
All in all, it is an enormously and delightfully theatrical show, right down to the flames exploding and beakers bubbling in the doctor's laboratory; the cartoony supporting characters; and Wagner's quick changes between Jekyll and Hyde as they battle for the poor doctor's soul.

And all of this near-camp silliness is wrapped in an attractive package of some truly lovely music, including "In His Eyes" and "Someone Like You," two tunes that could easily become standards.

"J&H" is also filled with some fabulous performances, particularly Wagner and Brown, who seem to be able to steal the show at will. In fact, the two female leads are quite strong, and their duet, on "In His Eyes," is one of the most stunning moments in the show.

OK, "Jekyll & Hyde" is not great theater, but it sure is a lot of fun.